


Motes & Motors: Bruised, Blushing, Busted

by martieek



Series: Motes & Motors [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Greasers, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Caretaking, Caught, First Kiss, M/M, Sneaking Around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 21:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14387802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/martieek/pseuds/martieek
Summary: Shiro is just one mystery after another, and now that he's shown up at the Holt house late at night, Matt only has more questions.  But instead of answers, he gets a different kind of suprise.





	Motes & Motors: Bruised, Blushing, Busted

Matt barely took note of the first  _plink_  at his bedroom window when it led him to that grey space between wakefulness and dreams.  The shifting imagery in his mind translated the sound into a water droplet falling into a puddle.  The second one was more like a pebble in his bathroom sink, louder but poor reverb.   _Bad acoustics…_

His eyelids fluttered open, sticky-feeling and heavy, when the third knock brought him back to full consciousness.  Still exhausted, however, it took one last rap to make him peel his blanket off and investigate.  Groggy and annoyed, Matt assumed it was just some form of precipitation, so when his eyes adjusted to the amber street light from outside, the silhouette below his window made his heart stop—until he recognized the figure.

“Shiro?” he breathed to himself before lifting the pane.  Damp night air sloshed over Matt’s skin as he leaned over the windowsill to hiss down, “Are you seriously tossing pebbles right now?”

“Beans,” Shiro corrected.  He spoke above a whisper, but not so loud as to wake the other Holts. With nonchalance, Shiro pulled his hand from his pocket and tossed another bean past Matt’s face and into his room, as if to prove it.

Disgruntled but curious as to what Shiro was doing here at—he checked his wristwatch—two in the morning, Matt held up a finger to tell Shiro to wait while he snuck expertly downstairs and let Shiro inside, leading him quietly back up.  At his bedroom door, the hallway night light was cast in such a way that Matt saw something glistening on Shiro’s face.   _It’s not raining… Blood?_

Matt grabbed Shiro by the arm, herding him inside the bathroom and leaving the door slightly ajar, grimacing as the hinge’s trademark squeak pierced the sound barrier against the dead of night.  He recoiled upon turning on the light to see Shiro’s face covered in smears of blood and dirt, a bruise forming under his eye.  Shiro held up his hands—also bruised—as if to stay Matt’s reaction, but Matt wasn’t sure how to react at first anyway.

“What the hell happened?” he finally said, breathless.

Shiro shrugged.  “It’s nothing, I just—”

“Nothing?  Wh—”   Matt checked himself, voice desperate to go above a whisper.  Tight-lipped, he grabbed a washrag from the sink and wet it.  “Here, sit,” he directed Shiro, pushing him gently to the toilet as he took his own seat on the edge of the tub adjacent, wiping carefully at the grime.

Shiro tried to suppress a wince when the rag pressed against the wound on his forehead, but it was the one Matt was most worried about. “You don’t have to tell me what happened,” he said, using the lightest touch he could to still dab off the blood, “but you don’t have to act so tough all the time.  You can say ‘ow,’ you know.”

“Don’t you need your glasses?” Shiro asked, changing the subject.

“Not this close.  Besides, I can see that you’re an idiot from any distance.”

“ _Ow._ ”

Matt busied himself, perhaps too much so, trying to clean up Shiro. He wasn’t really sure what to say, and Shiro gave no sign of wanting to fill him in either.  But, he supposed, they had to stay quiet anyway.  If anyone else in the house saw Shiro here—looking like  _this_ , no less—he wouldn’t know where to begin trying to explain.

An amused look started creeping into Shiro’s tired-looking features, bringing Matt back to attention.  He met his dark eyes for a moment, and for a reason Matt was too tired to identify, he found his face growing hotter.  “What?” he demanded, realizing he’d stopped moving his hand, holding the rag still against Shiro’s face.  Averting his gaze, Matt reached over to rinse the cloth in the sink.

Once Matt strained the excess water and moved to start wiping again, Shiro stole a kiss from Matt with such suddenness it caused Matt to jump and pull back with a stifled garble that ended up sounding a lot like “ow.”

Shiro knitted his brow with uncertainty, fighting a grin.  “Ow?”

“No, uh, not ow,” Matt sputtered, face growing even hotter as he tried to calm his voice.  “It didn’t hurt, it’s just, you—it was—I was just startled.”   _Oh, God, where do I look? Hands? Shit. Oh, my God? Fuck._

“Sorry,” Shiro said, rather unapologetically, a dumb smile plastered over his dumb face.  “I should have prefaced that with, ‘I really want to kiss you.’”

Matt barely heard him over his own internal screaming.   _How do words?_   “You—what? You—”

“Can I?”

“Wh—can—uh… You—yeah?”

Shiro cocked an inquisitive eyebrow, clearly entertained. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”   _Did that sound too eager?  Shit.  Wait, he started it.  What the—_

“Is now a good time?”  Shiro’s head was tilted innocently, but Matt wasn’t amused.  Quite flustered, actually.

“Just, fucking—!”  Panicked, Matt pulled Shiro in this time, lips taut at first as he held in a nervous laugh.  Shiro brought his hands to either side of Matt’s face as they relaxed, their giggles softened into steady breathing, kissing deeper.  They rose to their feet to get even closer, hands absently exploring each other’s shapes, breath hot against each other’s skin.  The tiredness and confusion and adrenaline made things a little sloppy; they knocked teeth a few times, still fighting smiles, but Matt would argue the clumsy passion added something.  Somewhere in his subconscious, Matt wondered if, between the obscene amount of on-fire butterflies in his gut and the whirling head rush this rapid series of bizarre events had given him, perhaps he might fly away if Shiro didn’t have such a sure hold of him.

Like a gunshot at a child’s birthday party, the heady atmosphere was sapped by the creak of the door hinge, and Matt felt his heart and lungs crash and shrivel into disappearance as he whirled to face his sister staring slack-jawed and furrow-browed back at him in the doorway.  Matt stared back with a mirrored expression, all but literally a deer in the headlights.  “Pidge!” he croaked.

“Oh, thank God,” Pidge hissed, “I thought you were losing it in here talking to yourself.”  Her face was contorted, trying to analyze the situation against her grogginess.  “Who  _is_  that?  Do you know what time it is?  I have three exams tomorrow.”

“Pidge, keep it down!  You—”

“Holy shit, do you have a  _boyfriend?_ ”  Pidge’s eyes went from scornful to mischievous in an unsettling moment.

Matt froze, realizing Shiro’s hands were still at his hips, painfully aware now of how disheveled they both must have looked.  Wordless, Shiro let go and stepped back as Matt sputtered, “No, it’s—He’s just—I, uh, fell?  And—”

“What, in love?”

The effort Matt exerted to keep his voice under control was almost suffocating.  “Pidge, I  _swear to God_ —”

“Stop calling me that, or I’ll wake up Mom and Dad.”

“ _No!_  Pi—Katie, please, I will give you twenty bucks, right now, to keep your mouth  _shut_.”

Pidge smirked and Matt felt like they were in grade school again, ready to yank each other’s hair out.  “I don’t need your money.  I’ve just received a hefty payment in the form of blackmail.”

Uncomfortable, Shiro piped up from the back, his voice cracking a bit. “I can, uh, go… I shouldn’t have—”

Matt, desperate, turned back to face him, not sure of what to do.  “No, it’s okay, we can—”

“What, are you gonna share your bed like in some trashy fanfic?”  Pidge was really milking this, and Matt was growing exponentially more tired with each passing second.

“What are you even doing up?” Matt demanded, voice hoarse and weary now.

“I have to pee, genius.  This  _is_  the bathroom.”

With an exasperated glance to Shiro, who was looking uncharacteristically sheepish, Matt sighed.  “Katie,  _please_ , do not tell Mom and Dad about this.  You, me, and Shiro can all talk about this tomorrow, and we can explain everything, but our parents  _cannot_ find out, okay?  Please.”

Tilting her head, Pidge narrowed her eyes, looking behind Matt.  “Wait,  _Shiro?_   As in, Takashi Shirogane?   _That_  Shiro?  Isn’t he the one wh—”

“ _Katie!_ ”

“Okay!  I won’t say anything!  Now get out so I can go and get back to sleep.  I’m losing valuable memory retention hours, and if I blow any of these tests because of you twitterpated numbskulls—”  

“Kids?” 

Everyone froze, only their eyes darting between each other. Hearing Sam Holt’s voice from down the hall was like being contacted by an unwelcome entity from beyond.  “What’s going on out there?”

**Author's Note:**

> Motes & Motors is the official title I've given to my greaser au that I'll be working on intermittently. I won't be writing this as a full novel-esque narrative kind of fic, but I'll add shorter fic scenes like this one to help flesh out the universe and to just illustrate any prominent scenes I have on my mind.
> 
> The fics I post will have some sense of chronology to them, there will be the basis of a timeline, but I'll be writing them in a way that they can be read independently without need of further context (at least, that's my intention. Let me know if I'm doing a poor job of that).
> 
> Anyway, I'm new to AO3, so if there's any tagging concerns or formatting issues let me know! I'm doing my best to figure things out lol. 
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated for these things! I've gotten surprisingly invested in this AU I've made so I'll probably be self-indulging for a bit. Tell me your thoughts! 
> 
> You can follow my art blog on tumblr @martieek! It's not exclusively shatt/voltron stuff, but it's the easiest way to get in touch with me if you need anything!


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